All Saints - Sunday 31st October

This weekend we celebrate the great feast of All Saints. Not for us the silly, commercial hype of ‘Halloween’. Rather a celebration of life, and an affirmation of the power of Jesus over death itself. We proclaim Jesus in every Mass as the one whose dying has ‘destroyed our death’ and whose rising has ‘restored our life’, and the feast of All Saints is proof of those words. The saints are alive with the life of Christ, and through him we share in their fellowship and love.

The saints are our heroes and heroines, with the widest possible backgrounds, talents, lifestyles and abilities. In their lives we find the same struggles as our own. But as well as being our heroes and heroines they are also our friends. They pray for us and help us as we run the race to heaven.

This feast is very comforting. As we start to enter the dark and cold of winter, we have this feast that reminds us of the new life that will come both in the New Year but also at the end of time. This is a time for confident hope rather than fear, for the affirmation of the fullness of life found in Christ rather than nonsense about spooks, ghouls, and witches. May the saints of Christ pray for us that we may one day enter their eternal joy. P.D.